HTC has launched the Desire 830 in Taiwan, replacing the Desire 820 in the country. Bearing a 5.5″ 1080p display, the Desire 830 runs on MediaTek Helio X10 SoC, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage and expandability options. There’s also BoomSound speakers on the front of the device. The phone costs NT 9990 ($310), and will go on sale in Taiwan on May 6.
You might remember that last year Google promised to be more transparent with patching security vulnerabilities. Google promised to deliver monthly updates fixing any vulnerabilities they discovered that affected Nexus devices. Eventually, several OEMs have gotten on board with delivering monthly security patches, and eventually the scope of the Nexus Security Bulletin was broadened to discover and patch many general Android security issues. To reflect this change in scope, Google has announced that starting this month, they’ve renamed the Nexus Security Bulletin to the Android Security Bulletin. And as promised, they’ve just posted this month’s set of security patches.
What’s New
This month, Google has identified and patched a total of 25 security vulnerabilities. For the severities of the discovered vulnerabilities, 6 were marked as critical, 12 as high, 6 as moderate, and 1 was marked as low. Of these vulnerabilities, 24 out of 25 affected Nexus or Android One devices. By far the most critical security issue patched by Google was an issue affecting mediaserver which allowed for remote code execution. A user who opened an infected media file from any method (by email, web browsing, MMS, etc.) could have triggered code to remotely executive on their device without your knowledge or consent. According to Google, there have been no reports that this vulnerability was exploited in a real-world setting, at least. For a list of all other security vulnerabilities discovered and patched by Google, you can read the full Android Security Bulletin for the month of May. As you’ll notice, many of the vulnerabilities discovered are quite broad (such as the ones related to NVIDIA’s video drivers or Qualcomm’s Wi-Fi drivers) and apply to more than just Google’s Nexus devices, so it’s imperative that you accept the update as soon as you are able to no matter what device you use.
In addition, Google stresses the security offered by its SafetyNet and VerifyApps implementation. Per Google:
When do I get the Update?
Luckily for Google Nexus device owners, you should start seeing this update very soon on your device. As usual, the update is rolling out to users in waves so you may or may not receive it immediately. There’s always the factory image route if you would rather not wait. If you’re waiting for a custom ROM to implement these updates, then you’ll have to wait for the updated source to drop into the AOSP within the next 2 days.
For users on devices made by other manufacturers, your wait time will vary.Google’s partners were notified of these security issues identified in this bulletin by April 4, 2016, so OEMs have had plenty of time patching their own custom builds of Android to fix these security holes. You should expect an update to roll out sometime this month, but remember that these updates always reach people in waves and that OEMs like to bundle their own feature updates alongside these patches, which may delay the update. The Nextbit Robin, for instance, pushed out an update on April 27th that patched the security issues mentioned in April’s security bulletin.
What are your thoughts on Google’s pro-active stand on Android security? Is this an improvement over past promises? Or is their current course of action also questionable? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Google Keyboard was somewhat of a red-headed stepchild when it was first released almost 3 years ago. It had swipe gestures and autocompletion, but both features were immature compared to the technology offered by Swype and Swiftkey.
Thankfully, Google has not abandoned the project and has instead slowly been adding additional features to bring its feature set on par with most of its competitors. Swiping and auto-completion accuracy has also seen massive improvements over the years as Google has learned from its millions of users how best to predict what you’re trying to type. It’s been awhile since we’ve seen any major updates roll out to Google Keyboard, until today that is. Google Keyboard v5.0 is now gradually rolling out to users with possibility the biggest feature-set update we’ve ever seen before. Here’s what’s new:
Major Changes:
Minor Changes:
A text-based changelog doesn’t really show just how huge this update really is, so we’ve downloaded the update and taken it for a spin. First up, Google has finally answered the woes muttered by people tired of having to stretch their hands to reach all parts of the keyboard by introducing one-handed mode. You have the ability to toggle between right-handed and left-handed mode, depending on which side of the screen you hold the device more often. The keyboard then shifts slightly to the right or left depending on your setting. Want to switch to the other side or blow the keyboard back into its full size? No problem, just press the arrow key or the expansion key to perform either action. Finally, if you long-press on the comma key, you can quickly enable one-handed mode without having to dive into the keyboard settings. Thanks, Google!
Next up, Google has finally added the ability for you to adjust the keyboard height natively within the keyboard settings. No more DPI-changing or Xposed modules. And they didn’t butcher the implementation by giving you a preset selection of heights to pick from – instead you can adjust the height using a slider bar.
Notice something new about the screenshot on the right (besides the obvious height adjustment)? Yeah, you can now enable borders around your keys as well as expose the symbols behind the bottom two rows of letters with some new settings in this update. Minimalists might hate having this feature, but for so many people it’s nice to have clearly defined borders for when they’re trying to type while looking at their screen from an angle. In addition, the ability to quickly access commonly-used symbols via a long-press should improve your typing speed as you no longer need to switch to the full symbol layout.
And to further improve your typing speed, Google has added some additional gestures that you can use to better correct any mistakes you’ve made while typing. You can now delete words by sliding left from the delete key, a gesture many Swype users are familiar with. Furthermore, you can now control the keyboard cursor by in the direction of your choice across the space bar. Again, this feature isn’t unique to Google Keyboard, but it’s definitely a welcome addition and it may solidify your decision to migrate to Google’s offering.
Finally, Google is looking for YOUR help in improving the typing experience for all users of Google Keyboard. You can now opt-in to share anonymized snippets of what and how you type (only within Google apps, though, they won’t be snooping in to your private forum messages on XDA!) in order to help Google improve its typing and language recognition capabilities. You will be prompted to opt-in whenever you open the keyboard up for the first time after receiving the update.
Looking to download the update? You can find it over on APKMirror. Do note that this is only for ARM64 at the moment and that it will NOT install on the Android N Developer Previews just yet.
If you’re looking to get your hands on the Xiaomi Mi 5 or the Redmi Note 3, the devices are set to go on open sale on May 4 at 2pm IST at Mi.com. No registrations are required for the open sale, but stock is expected to run out quickly.
Our very own application XDA Labs is more than just a marketplace with some great apps by great developers. Today we talk some tips and tricks for navigating the XDA Forums with the XDA Labs app. Remember, there are many different features on XDA Labs, download it today to see more apps!!
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LeafPic aims to be the gallery replacement app to look forward to. Featuring material design and being open source, the gallery app bears most features expected of a modern gallery, but does have a few areas of improvement.
A Reddit member just discovered that if you let the storage fill up on the Droid Turbo 2 then you could be forced to do a factory reset. It seems the camera was activated while it was in their pocket and the recorded footage caused the storage to fill up. After giving the typical ‘storage is low’ warning, the phone rebooted itself and nothing worked.
